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1865 – present
The directories' negative stands as read: no livery stable is listed under that trade in Polk 1880–81, 1882–83, or 1884–85, or in the 1875 atlas directory's business columns, and the district record's only livery is the c.1905 concrete-block building at Center & Main, gone by 1917. But Howard's 1907 biography of Lewis S. His son Oba was associated in the North Liberty livery; his son Elzy ran Knox. Whether Aukerman's stable is the c.1905 concrete-block livery is stated by no carrier; both stand. The old gap therefore narrows to its residue: no keeper is named before Aukerman's arrival about 1900, and no carrier carries his North Liberty course past 1906 — settlers, Chapman and Howard at page-image strength and the 1909 Sanborn read directly. Draying proper stays a clean negative: no drayman, teamster-for-hire, freight hauler, or express agent is named for North Liberty in any carrier read — the one adjacent listing being Levi W. Poynter, "Building Mover" (1875 atlas), heavy hauling's nineteenth-century form and the record's only hauling-trade personal listing, the 1940 Poynter's Service Station being surname continuity only. The succession at ground strength, each tenancy on its own carrier and no firm succession claimed: livery (c.1905 – by 1917) → Hinkle's Ford sales and service (c.1920 – by 1929) → the c.1935 Service Garage → Gene's Towing & Repair (present) — the Center & Main lot carrying animal, then vehicle, service for the whole span; and the hauling trade's present directory forms are JRayl Transport (114 S. Lafayette), O'Connor Delivery (600 S. State), and Gene's Towing.
The blacksmith succession is a trade succession, printed as such and never as a firm succession. The smithy era stands whole in the businesses file: Elijah Lee from 1865 into the 1900s, and the four-smith bench of the c.1886 patrons list (Lee, Baker, Fetzer, Keesy), with B. F. Berger in 1880–81, and the wagon trade sharing the ground (Ritchie, Rowan, Nelson, Warster, F. M. Lee; carriage painting, Hamilton; harness, Flood). The break is dated by the directories: the last sighting of any blacksmith or wagon shop is Polk 1884–85; none appears in Polk 1916–17 or the 1940 list — by the town's first garage census in 1916–17 the smithy is already gone from the record. No carrier names a successor smith, a last smith, or a smithy-to-garage conversion in town; Lee's own shop ground behind 140 North Main carries no later trade in the record. The succession therefore runs smithy and wagon shop (1865 – 1880s directory life) → garage and service station (1916–17 to present) → the present welding and machine forms, Shoemaker Welding on State Road 23 and Unique Tooling at 109 West Center (town links), with Clyde's Steering Service (1967 to a modern service center at 615 S. State, continuity unproven) as the repair trade's longevity pointer inside the same succession. Settler for any named bridge figure — a smith who became a welder or garageman: the News record and the unread 1900s–1910s directories.